stand you. Pray do speak out. What trap could we set?"

"Oh, I'll soon show you that, sir. Here's the bait for it."

Samson opened his wallet, and drew therefrom a round flat cake, which
had been cut open; and as he held it on his hand he raised the top,
treating it as if it were the lid of a box, and grinned at Fred as he
showed him within four slices of boiled salt pork.

"There, sir," he said, as he shut the top down again, "there's a bait
for a trap as would catch any hungry man."

"Yes; but what are you going to do?"

"I'll show you, sir. I'm just going to hang that inside yonder hole;
and if my brother Nat's there he'll smell it half a mile away, and come
and take it. I know him like a lesson. We'll leave it there, go away,
and come back again; and if the cake's gone we know they are there."

"We shall know some one is there," Fred said thoughtfully. "Yes, we
shall know that Scar is there," he added with more show of animation,
"for no one but us two know of the existence of that hole. He must have
come out and found your brother."

"Shall I bait the trap, then, sir?" said Samson.

"Yes, of course."

"Ah," said Samson, placing the cake in a fork of one of the dead
branches right in the hole, "you often laugh at me, sir, for bringing a
bit o' food with me, but now you see the good of it. There!"

He drew back to look admiringly at his work.

"That'll catch him, sir," he said.

"Yes, they'll see that," cried Fred, eagerly. "Now let's get back to
the lake, and fish for an hour."

"But we aren't got no lines, sir."

"Never mind; we must pretend, in case we are watched. Come along
quickly."

Fred spoke in a low excited whisper, just as if he had helped in the
setting of a gin for some wild creature; and as he hurried Samson back
toward the lake he turned once, full of exultation, and shook his
follower warmly by the hand.

"What's that there for?" said Samson, feigning ignorance, but with his
eyes sparkling and his face bright with satisfaction.

"Because I feel so happy," cried Fred. "It's a long time since I have
felt so satisfied as I do now."

"Ah, I gets puzzleder and puzzleder," said Samson, grimly, "more than
ever I was. I never knowd why we all began fighting, and you don't make
it a bit clearer, Master Fred. I believe you're a reg'lar sham, sir,
pretendin' that Master Scar's your enemy, and all the time you seem as
if you'd go through fire and water to help him. Why, we sha